Bubble drive
Technical Overview Compressing space in front of the ship and expanding space behind, a ship may move at sublight speeds while maintaining relativistic velocities to an outside viewer. Efficiency Power consumption for warp drives is calculated based on the desired speed, the size of the ship, and importantly, the mass in the surrounding space. Warp drives are generally rated for a certain power capacity, which is then matched to a ship. Since warp drives require compressing and expanding the surrounding space, the required power for the warp also depends on the amount of mass in the area. If within a dense star system, a ships speed will be reduced greatly until it can escape the gravity well. This means that a bubble drive is most efficient in the most empty areas of space, and pilots will frequently prefer these lanes in return for a faster speed. Navigation Blind Jumps While in warped space, navigation through traditional means (inertial, celestial, etc) is impossible. Early implementation of the technology relied on calculated "blind" jumps. However, due to the unstable nature of the warp bubble and warped space in general, ships would often have more than a 20% error in their destination radius (eg a 500 light-year jump would have a 100 light year radius of "error"). Explorers and ship manufacturers alike would tout their navigation skills on the accuracy of their jumps. Regardless, captains will usually plan several incremental jumps to reach a specific destination, reducing the distance with each jump (Colloquially referred to as bouncing or puddle-jumping). Using modern computers and the most stable warp cores, this error is reduced into single-digit percentages, though the puddle-jumping method is still preferred especially for longer distance travel into unknown space. Mass Navigation yet discussed Navigation in Mapped Space After an explorer or surveying ship enters a new region, it will generally map out the background cosmic background radiation in the area. It was found that this signature is generally unique to the area and can be detected while in warp. Modern FTL drives have these mappings stored on their navigation computers so that a ship's location can be plotted and tracked. This makes navigation within known space much less risky and generally quicker for everyday travelers. Failures and Errors Modern drives have many failsafes to prevent damage to the ship, its crew, and major loss of life Intentional Over-charging Captains and navigators seeking to push the limits of their drives will sometimes attempt to increase the power to their drive. While most drive manufacturers have added a factor of safety to their operational limits, an overcharged engine could result in power loss, field reversal, core casing rupture, or worse. Additionally, ships travelling faster than their design spec often are not suited for safely navigating the space, and end up wildly off course or with severe hull damage. Under-charging and Field Reduction Power-conscious captains (or those with damaged power cores) will sometimes opt to under-charge their warp core for the desired speed. All warp cores have limits set in an attempt to avoid this, however, if the engine is underpowered, the area of condensed space could be breached (the bubble gets smaller). While there is poor data for exactly what happens when the hull of a ship passes through the barrier of a bubble, it is generally believed that all matter within the bubble is torn apart down to a particle level. Proximity to Stellar Mass Despite the ineffectiveness of a warp drive near large masses, the amount of energy that a ship has while going even a fraction of the speed of light is enough to severely damage a moon or planet. Therefore, a ship's warp drive will automatically come drop warp if it detects a significant enough obstruction. This feature can be used to disrupt the travel of a ship (often for nefarious purposes), to the point that many navigation computer manufacturers attempt to sell their product on their ability to detect false signals. Unintentional Core damage and/or rupture Warp core damage is one of the scarier aspects of space travel. The unstable nature of the drive means that a variety of things can/do happen (depending on the damage sustained), but generally if a core is damaged to the point it should be shutdown safely, it will try to bring the ship gracefully out of warp (see power loss below). In the event that the core is more rapidly compromised, the field will be unable to be sustained or kept consistent. At best, the ship would suddenly come out of warp and return to its sublight (often ending in crew injuries), but at worst, the ship will be torn apart and strewn across space. Core rupture occurs whenever the casing of the warp drive is breached. The core itself is contained by several layers of electromagnetic and physical shields, however, breaches from combat or critical overcharging have occurred. Along with being incredibly radioactive, a rupture in an active core could unleash waves of highly condensed space that will tear through ships and crew without care. Power loss Most ships have additional independent backup capacitors that can keep a drive online long enough to bring a disabled ship safely out of warp. The accelerations imparted upon the ship vary from model to model, but generally an emergency drop from warp is only enough to toss somebody off their feet. These capacitors rarely fail unless the core has already been damaged in some way (see above). Field Reversal Cores with unstable power or inadequate sub-light thrust are more prone to something called Field Reversal, which is when the core cannot sustain the boundaries between the condensed and expanded regions of space. This will result in the two fields merging and/or reversing. In a pure reversal, the ship will be effectively stopped in space. In the event of the two fields intermingling and merging, a large gravity wave will distort space around the ship. This can be effectively (though dangerously) used to bring other ships out of warp. Other Considerations *